202200332512 · FOI · partially withheld
First Minister Christmas cards: FOI release
Information requested
Please provide me with a list of recipients for the First Minister's Christmas card.
Response
I enclose a list of the organisations, foreign leaders and dignitaries received a Christmas Card from the First Minister on behalf of the Scottish Government. In addition to those organisations listed, the First Minister typically sends a Christmas card to Members of the Scottish Parliament and other politicians.
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to your request for the names of all the people who were sent a Christmas card from Nicola Sturgeon in her capacity as First Minister because some of the information requested is personal data of a third party, ie names/contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.
About FOI
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Detected exemption language
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to your request for the names of all the people who were sent a Christmas card from Nicola Sturgeon in her capacity as First Minister because some of the information requested is personal data of a third party, ie names/contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.